My printer could theoretically print a black and white page in magneta when my black ink runs out, too. But logically, it doesn’t want to do that.
I just don’t think it’s a big deal to consider the printer a device that requires all inks to be present to function properly. If the printer is consuming some color inks in order to print black colors better the implication is that less black ink is being consumed. Either way you’re buying ink.
It’s not cheapness. My kid couldn’t print her homework because I was low on cyan. It’s not that I don’t want to buy more ink, but that the thing I was printing only needed black. If it weren’t a color printer, the output would’ve been identical and it wouldn’t have needed cyan.
Alternatively, the printer allows you to keep going regardless of status of the print ink and then the printer gets bad reviews and complaints about bad print quality.
Your unpreparedness on your kids’ homework isn’t the fault of the manufacturer. I can’t blame Ticonderoga if I run out of pencils.
If you ran out of black ink you’d be similarly in trouble.
> Your unpreparedness on your kids’ homework isn’t the fault of the manufacturer. I can’t blame Ticonderoga if I run out of pencils.
That analogy doesn’t hold up. You have other colour pencils at hand, but you can’t use them because the blue pencil is worn down. Let me use my goshdarn pencils.
Because it has a different ink formulation that’s designed for mono-colored printing.
Let’s make another analogy: two wheels fall off my car. You tell me “hey, motorcycles exist, you can still use that car!!”
But my car isn’t a motorcycle, it’s a car.
If you buy a printer that requires two cartridges to function then you keep both cartridges filled to keep it functioning.
I’ve always felt like this whole discussion has mostly surrounded people who are penny pinching to an extreme level that doesn’t make sense. You didn’t run out of color ink because you never printed in color. And if you never printed in color you wouldn’t have bought a color printer. You’ve gotta refill your color ink eventually.
This is the same thing as people who add water to their liquid hand soap to try and make it last longer. It just makes the soap gross and saves 10 cents at best.
The reason to buy a colour inkjet printer is that it's the cheapest thing you can get your hands on. Usually because the various education systems throughout the world somehow fail to centrally handle printing of course material. Either that, or you're one of the couple of dozen people who prints photos, and additionally in the subset that hasn't also decided to pay for someone else to deal with the cursed product category.
After a quick check I found the "HP Deskjet Plus 4130" new for 350 NOK (so about 37 USD, which includes 25% VAT and a 2 or 5 (probably 5) year warranty mandated of the vendor). Seems similar to the others that come up when sorting by price on one of the local price comparison sites. So 70 USD would for most people appear to be about twice as much money up front for something that needs to produce the bare minimum and otherwise be easy to dust.
Is there some kind of information asymmetry at play where in 2026 customers can’t comprehend a more expensive printer being a lower cost in the long run?
And here we are talking about a difference in cost of roughly $35 or the price of a meal for 2 at Chipotle.
Would you say that it’s unfair that the Toyota Prius costs more to purchase than a Nissan Sentra but the Prius costs less to operate due to having much better fuel efficiency?
Are consumers somehow unable to understand why they might choose invest more up front?
No, its tracking dots if you send a criminal printed letter for ransom, they will track you down very quickly. Some people don't like being tracked continuously.
There are 0 other reasons, you being ignorant of basic facts and repeating your weird mantra doesn't change that.
Ehh, the tracking dots don't mean anything if it isn't a commercial unit and your printer isn't seized. Its not like there is a database of where every shitty printer made in the last 20 years is located and who owns it and what dots it prints.
In consumer models it is security theater for politicians to claim prints can be tracked and for the consumers to use/waste more ink and buy more.
I just don’t think it’s a big deal to consider the printer a device that requires all inks to be present to function properly. If the printer is consuming some color inks in order to print black colors better the implication is that less black ink is being consumed. Either way you’re buying ink.
Some people are just cheap.